Immaculate Heart (2) at Bogota (1) - Girls Volleyball

For the second time in less than two weeks, the two best girls volleyball teams in the state faced off yesterday. Just like the first meeting between Immaculate Heart Academy, No. 1 in The Star-Ledger Top 20, and No. 2 Bogota, it was a hotly contested and evenly matched three-set battle.

And just like the first meeting, Immaculate Heart won — this time overcoming a weak first set to win the next two and take the match, 2-1, at Bogota.

"I knew Bogota was gonna be hard," Immaculate Heart outside hitter Nia Reed said. "Coming into the gym, we knew it was gonna be a fight. It's never easy playing them. They came out hard, and we weren't up to par, and picked it up in the second and third set. And that's all we could do. Fight."

Bogota came out of the gate strong while Immaculate Heart faltered. The polished passing and clinical attack that has become the status quo for the squad were absent. It dropped the first set, 25-15, the team's lowest scoring output of the young season.

"We were giving them a lot of easy balls because we weren't really passing well," Immaculate Heart coach Mike DeCastro said. "We couldn't set up our hitters, and we were just giving them easy balls."

The second set started with three straight Bogota points before Immaculate Heart kicked it into gear, fighting back with a 7-4 run. But Bogota wouldn't go away in a back-and-forth game that saw the score tied at 16 different points.

Neither team had scored three straight points since the early points of the set. But with the score tied at 22, Immaculate Heart finally grabbed momentum and won the set, 25-22.

"We were just saying to ourselves, 'We just need to get a lead,'" DeCastro said. "We couldn't get a lead. We always tied them; they would go up. When we finally got the lead, it just felt different."

Immaculate Heart drew from that confidence in the third set, playing with a lead for the first time all day. After Bogota tied the set at 16, Immaculate Heart ripped off a 9-4 run to take the set, 25-20, and clinch the match.

It was only a regular season match, but the emotions displayed after the match suggested otherwise. Immaculate Heart players hugged and cheered with joy, while Bogota was dejected as they quickly left the gym.

"It's hard to beat them in the first game by a substantial amount and then lose," Bogota coach Brad DiRupo said. "They got things done better than we did."